Any passer-by would agree that it was a haunting scene. The stationery car, with the frantic driver crying and tugging at her hair as she stepped out of the vehicle. A medium sized body sprawled on the ground in front of it. Two children, half-lying, green in the face, on the sidewalk, and another slightly further into the road, her head covered by her arms, screaming and screaming.

It was Kim's screaming that had alerted most people onto the scene. People started to lean out of their front doors, and when they noticed what had happened, they ran over, gazing in empathetic horror, asking questions, and trying but failing to help. It was actually Mrs Shenk, for all her bad qualities, who actually got down to calling 911. Bill Shenk went to see to Kim, Jessica and Jake, the latter of whom where a terrible shade of chartreuse and staring blankly ahead of them, unspeaking, and the former of whom was quite purely hysterical. A tall man with pale blonde hair and kind eyes ventured towards Mike and placed a hand across his chest.

"He's alive," he declared. "Just."

Jake had almost been in too much of a daze to pick up on this, but he did, and at this began to cry, at first just a few tears, falling silently, then a steady howl.

"What's going on?" called a familiar voice. Kim looked up from her arms, her face puffy and scarlet as though she had been crying for hours. She saw that the speaker was Charlie, and she started to cry hysterically again as she ran to him.

"Charlie!" she screamed, flying into his arms, crying more and more. Charlie held his sister, and with a horrible squirm in his stomach, he leaned a over towards the scene. He couldn't quite make out the……………

His eyes widening into saucers, rather like Jessica, and Jake, who was now almost as hysterical as Kim, he ran backwards, dropping his sister, towards his parents and a few siblings who were now arriving on the scene. He broke the confusion for them.

"Mom, Dad," he cried as he came back over, "the – the car h..h..hit Mike."

As the sick reality of this hit everyone, Kate stood perfectly still for a moment, then glanced over at the car and began to scream. She ran over to her son's huddled form and knelt by it, crying into her hands. Tom ran over to his wife and held her shoulders, staring blankly ahead.

Jessica started to howl, and ran to Henry, who put his arms around her, staring ahead, going a particularly awful depth of white. Lorraine absorbed the scene quicker than all of her siblings, oddly, and ran to where her parents were crouching, and standing behind them, started, like all the others, to cry, except she did not cover her face, she just stood there, her face soaking wet and crumpled.

All the others reacted similarly, either starting to sob, or staring blankly ahead. A couple of minutes later, the ambulance arrived, and a tall, stockily built woman with light brown hair stepped out of it and over to the car.

"Go and check the boy, Jack," she said to the paramedic standing next to her. "Step back please, please everybody, you'll need to get out of the way, we'll handle it from here."

People scattered, still staring worriedly at the body in front of the car.

"He's alive," Jack announced, "but," he began more quietly to the paramedic woman, "his pulse is getting weaker, we need to get him to the hospital quickly or he isn't going to stand a chance."

One of the other paramedics, a young man with big, dark eyes and bronze skin, went over to Kim, who it had been established had been there at the scene at the time of the accident.

"What happened?" he asked her soothingly, putting an arm around her, "I know it's difficult," he said, as Kim continued to cry hysterically, "but you'll need to tell me if we're going to make him better."

Kim glanced up and saw Mike was on a stretcher, being loaded into the ambulance. She tried to stop weeping, she choked on her tears and coughed until they had subsided enough for her to talk.

"He…. He had an epileptic seizure when he was in the road, J-J-Jake and Jess..ica and I went to him, and a car came around the corner, and… I tried to move him in time but I couldn't….. it's all my faaulllt…." She moaned, the tears appearing again. The kind paramedic gave Kim a hug then said to her.

"It's not your fault, honestly, it isn't, you mustn't blame yourself. How many siblings do you have?"

"There are 12 of us in all," Kim whimpered.

"Woah. OK, well we're definitely not going to get all of you in the ambulance, OK? So, if your parents go with your brother, and your older brother and sister, is there anyone to look after you?"

At this point, Mr Kershaw, the new neighbour, stepped forward.

"I'm their neighbour. We can take them to the hospital in the truck, if you want," he said warmly.

"This is your neighbour, is it Kim?"

Kim nodded hurriedly, tears spilling down her face.

"OK, that's great," the paramedic replied. "Now," he continued, turning to and a few of the others, "I need you all to go with him, then you can all get to the hospital."

Stephanie went over to Jessica, who was still staring expressionlessly in front of her, and put an arm around her, leading her towards the truck parked up the road. Jessica, as limp as a ragdoll, allowed herself to be lead, her head straining towards the ambulance now departing, where Mike, Kate, Tom, Charlie and Lorraine were now.

Slowly, the Baker children managed to gather, as the Kershaws helped them kindly towards their rented truck.

After they were all inside, and on the way to the hospital, Jessica spoke, her expression and her voice completely monotone and vacant.

"Someone's got to call Norah," she voiced simply. Mark looked up from his lap, his face tear-stained and crimson. He fumbled miserably in his pocket for the phone, pulled it out, and pressed Speed Dial 4. He blinked fast as he waited for an answer. Each tone seemed to last an hour……

…………"Norah?"